Hip hop makers, Akai MPC or softsampler?

[Jak]

I make hip hop. I use battery to do the drums, but lately ive been thinking about getting one of the new MPC 1000s.

Im not good at playing drums with my midi keyboard in real time, so I pencil in midi data into a midi track and hook that up to an Aux track with battery on it. I do this in grid mode (16th notes). This way, kick, snare, and hi hat lock in perfectly. But maybe too good. I listen to it, and it sounds good, but when i listen to a pro hip hop track their drums 'seem' to be more real. I dont know, maybe im just imagining it, because they would quantize to lock in the beats, right? Making it the same as mine. I cant hear the difference in timing, so it might be something else that is creating that live feel. My point is, would using an Akai sampler, give me a more expressive, better sounding beat? No matter hard you work on re-creating something, sometimes its too hard to capture a live performance. Thats probably not too clear, but you get the idea, right? I just feel like, maybe an akai would be better.

Thanks

Alex

[GORILLA]

Maybe it's your samples?
My bud brought over some phat beats he did on his Kurzweil. And timings were perfect, just the drum samples were weak. So we tried other samples annd bammm...it added BEEF THUMP Air to the mix!
That's all it was ....his samples

[Bender]

Some of those boxes are really cool. If you are good at setting things up but do not like the perfect timing thing try using some midi groove templates

http://www.digidesign.com/digizine/a...03/lebootcamp/

Even when an awesome drummer plays to a click they can play ahead/behind the beat and that is why they get the human sound.

Also mess with the velocity of some of the hits. Even a perfect drummer never has exact hits every time.

Good Luck

[Jak]

Yeah, thats what Im talking about - the perfect timing factor! If I write in the midi data, its too perfect. But what about quantize? Dont hiphop producers use quantize as well? If they did, then their hits would line up perfectly too.

[Jak]

Can I get more groove templates? On the net?

Thanks

[dleted]

Get a MPC and a load of records to sample from.

Soft samplers just dont have the punch and swing that the Akai sample engine does. Plus its easier to use than a soft sampler because its all there in one box and you dont have to worry about your track limit or cpu maxing out. Though you are limited on sample ram, most hip hop joints dont need a lot of sampling time.

Its all about the MPC baby, I have had mine for 4 years and would sell everything else in my studio including my digi 002r before I got rid of my MPC. Its the best.


zack

[midiman]

Get a MPC and a load of records to sample from.

Soft samplers just dont have the punch and swing that the Akai sample engine does. Plus its easier to use than a soft sampler because its all there in one box and you dont have to worry about your track limit or cpu maxing out. Though you are limited on sample ram, most hip hop joints dont need a lot of sampling time.

Its all about the MPC baby, I have had mine for 4 years and would sell everything else in my studio including my digi 002r before I got rid of my MPC. Its the best.


zack

-What about the AKAI s3000Xl?
Is that anything like the MPC?
KK.

[pk_hat]

The S3000XL is a rackmount sampler. The MPC is a tabletop sampler with 16 pads, aimed mostly for (but not limited to) rhtythm programming.

[GZUZIZLORD]

alot of it is the samples you use, you should want the snare and bass drum locked in perfect timing but don't quantize the hi hat, I have reason and its cool, alot cheaper than an mpc, its sampler is tight, but it all goes back to the samples, modernbeats.com have alot of good stuff also, I also have a triton, I've never used an mpc so I don't know it but its basically a sampler and maybe only as good as the samples you put into it?

[pk_hat]

Another vote for sample quality first, not the tool to trigger them, as that comes down to familiarity and personal preference. I also use Reason for hip-hop and trip-hop/smoky beats and somehow this works for me, though I do use the best samples I can going in. As for quantizing, just use your ears and try not to emulate what everyone else is doing. If what you're doing sounds good to you, then it is. Should you need to quantize, use groove templates, put some swing on your beat, etc, there's a lot of options for that.